Phil Simms has yet to comment about getting bumped out of CBS’s No. 1 NFL booth by former Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, but son Chris offered his thoughts on his Bleacher Report podcast that came out Thursday. Chris Simms, also a former NFL quarterback, said CBS wasn’t exactly forthright with his father about the decision it made. In fact, he was the one who relayed the news to his father, who was on vacation in Barbados, after being informed that the move was imminent by an NFL insider.
“He’s good. If there’s anything he is a little disappointed is that they didn’t talk to him right away and warned him this was happening,” Chris Simms said. “That’s not what you do for a good, hard-working employee who’s been with you 20 years and the face of your football station. From that, it probably does hurt.
“I don’t know if my dad would be happy with me saying this: You can’t sit there as a normal person out there and look at this and say they handled it like professionals. [The possibility] has been out there for two weeks.”
Advertisement
In a statement to the New York Post, a CBS spokeswoman denied Chris Simms’s claims, saying the network kept Phil Simms and his agent apprised of his situation: “Both Phil and his agent knew in advance of the announcement and CBS had been in regular communication with his agent prior to that.”
With two years remaining on his contract, it’s unclear what role Phil Simms will have on CBS’s NFL coverage going forward. His agent, Steve Rosner, told the Bergen Record’s Tara Sullivan that he and Simms will meet with network officials “within the next month or so and figure out what his future role will be.” Among the possibilities: Move down the ranks of CBS’s NFL broadcast teams, join the network’s “NFL Today” studio show (Tony Gonzalez just stepped down from his position there) or negotiate a way out of his contract so he can join another network (Fox is looking for a No. 2 color commentator after John Lynch joined the San Francisco 49ers front office earlier this year).
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JonJqqnK56rbHAnWawqF9nfXKDjmlraGhmZL2ptctmqqKlnah6uK3SZpmloZ6ZwKqwxJ1km7FdmK%2B0v4ympq%2BdXam8bsDOp7Bmqp%2BivG6%2FzqdkrJmpqHw%3D